choosing not to store the data is different than it being unencrypted in transit. nothing stops snapchat from building an internal "product" that captures, say,

choosing not to store the data is different than it being unencrypted in transit. nothing stops snapchat from building an internal "product" that captures, say, messages with certain geolocation, or comments, or, hell, based on some sort of image recognition system. Nothing stops the government from subpoening them asking for this functionality (see lavabit 1.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_ord... )